High power lasers in use today produce intensities that can cause severe eye damage or even blindness. As a consequence, users of such lasers are required to wear eye protection in the form of protective goggles. Standard protective goggles for such use are typically made of materials which absorb at the wavelength of the laser light but permit other wavelengths of light to pass so that the user can observe his surroundings and perform work in a relatively normal manner. While such goggles are effective in protecting those exposed to stray laser radiation, they do have a number of practical limitations. First, they must be designed for a particular wavelength or wavelength band. They can only be used with the laser for which they were designed. If other lasers are present with outputs outside of the design wavelength band, then a combination of filtering is required or a potential use hazard exists. Secondly, in order to be safe, the lenses must filter out such high levels of laser light that it becomes difficult or impossible to view where the laser beam is directed. This leads many users to adopt unsafe practices such as looking around the edges of the eyewear when aligning the beam, a very dangerous practice.